


Scars

by quartzy



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24074680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartzy/pseuds/quartzy
Summary: After, she bears no scars. (A post-series reflection from our erstwhile hero.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Scars

After, she bears no scars. The skin on her back is smooth and well-formed, with nothing to mar its light surface. When she presses her hand to her waist, glances at herself in the mirror, she looks like any other fourteen-year-old girl. Like she has never been kneed in spots below her stomach or shoved to the ground. Like she has never been bruised or hurt; stabbed multiple times in a place where wounds will never form.

When she wakes up, she touches her callused fingers. Co-workers at the bakery shop comment on them, on her quick wrists and nimble gestures. "Ah, Tenjou-san," they say. "You're a born athlete. You should be on a sports team." They never specify what kind of sports team that might be, but there are double meanings in their words, and the intent is clear. You're good at what you do, but you belong somewhere else. You’re meant for another place. Not here, and certainly not in a shop that smells like ground coffee and cake, but a place that has stickier, sweeter overtones.

It's true. It must be. At work, she wears long baggy jeans and aprons over her sweaters. Heavier clothing to cover her invisible injuries. Her hair is pulled back into a clumsy ponytail, and that ring, the one with its curious carved insignia (close enough to cut into her heart) is absent. The lack of metal should make her more free, but it binds her down in a different way.

It couldn’t always have been like this. There must be a meaning to why she still continues waking up every morning, keeps longing for a certain feeling. On sky-blue mornings, she itches to run with the wind. Throw on her sneakers and stand outside; laugh. Be the person that she once used to be, instead of pressing a hand to her scalp and feeling that familiar ache.

She can still be that person, she knows. And when she least expects it, she sees echoes of the people she cared for in those around her. The girl at the cashier, with her quick wit and sunny grin, is Wakaba. Another boy who comes in, dragged by his sister, has the same thin wrists and soft gaze of Miki. And their stately manager, imposing but with flashes of wry humor, shows flickers of a happier Juri.

There are so many people: dozens, millions more than in Ohtori Academy. It's something to be grateful for. Every week, she sees someone that she thinks she once knew, and people that she will never see again. They spill into the shop, and even if she forgets some of the names, she still remembers every one of their faces.

So it can be good, even if she never asked for any of this: the longing, the nostalgia, the strange recollections. Or that faded photograph, with her hand clasped in another deeper one, shining in the weak light of her apartment building. The memories of longer days and steel sliding over skin.

Now, how can she think of herself as Tenjou Utena, the noble prince, after being brought into a world where none of that even matters?

Maybe she’ll have to start over again. And maybe Himemiya is out there, too. She might be smiling. She might even be wearing a spring-colored dress, instead of one sewn in fresh blood. But of all the people she's seen so far, nobody looks like her. Nobody resembles the Chairman either, and he may be nothing more than a figment, but she is certain that Himemiya exists. That Himemiya must still remember their conversation, waiting to have tea and laugh together in ten years like they promised. And if she is, then...

She wants to be strong, and she wants to be kind. She wants to have courage, and most of all, she wants to be herself again. Not under the pretense of an illusion, and not to be what she once was, but who she can still be. Even in these changing currents, like a rock under water, with the focus of her world remaining the same.

And now she can admit, for her own sake as much as anyone else's.

The thing is, she doesn't want to get hurt. She never did. But given the choice, she knows that nothing will improve unless she gives this life a chance. Unless she spins the wheels of change by making something happen yet again.

Her scars never show. But under the weight of each invisible line, she knows now that some growth can come only from taking risks and experiencing pain.

She thinks that, and aches a little less every single day.


End file.
